Eleri

Eleri has now graduated from the University of Leicester.
Hello! My name is Eleri Simpson and I'm a 4th (and final!) year geology student at the University of Leicester. The parts of my course that I love the most are: mapping, igneous and metamorphic processes, geochemistry and volcanology. Outside of learning I'm part of the First Aid society and the University concert band, where I play the clarinet. I enjoy evenings at the pub, cooking, walking in the countryside and a good cup of tea.

The time has come for me to bid farewell to Leicester, the four fantastic years I spent here and all of the incredible friends I made along the way. To celebrate the achievements of its students a University usually puts on this little thing called a Graduation ceremony which I always though was no big […]

So the sad time has come that I must leave the wonderful city of Leicester, the University and all of my incredible friends in the rock store, I mean the people that I have spent the last 4 years with. It has been the best experience of my life so far and I am sad […]

One benefit of going to the University of Leicester is that one bright sunny days (like this one!) you can spend the day lazing around with your friends. This particularly sunny day happened to be my birthday so a large group of us met on the park for scones and pimms (very posh I know!). Despite […]

Here is a list of things I wish I had known before starting my 4th year masters project! 1) Keep track of everything you do in a diary. The diary was actually part of our final mark so we all had to submit one, however I found it so useful to write thoughts and to […]

… it does exist! Repeat: I can confirm that life continues after the slow walk to reception, arms laden with around 20,000 words (from 2 paper copies), two CDs and a project diary in order to hand the last 9 months of your life over the counter. The past week has been strangely empty without the constant […]

Carrying on with my reflection series I thought I’d try to sum up my university experience with my top five university experiences – so, in no particular order, here goes! 1. The first day there won’t be another day like this, where you are thrown into halls with a whole bunch of people you don’t know. Sounds […]

As promised here is a brief account of my experience of PhD applications! Where to start: At first I had literally no idea where to look for PhD positions, its not like there is a UK wide UCAS application to go through this time! Luckily for me (and you I suppose!) they have started introducing Doctoral […]

You might think I’m crazy, that after all this study all I want to do is go on and do more – and perhaps I am! Nevertheless, this September I will embark on the beginning of a 3.5 year research project up in Edinburgh. The title of the project word for word is: ‘Squeezing the […]

From the 12th to the 14th of March, just last week, many of the southern islands of Vanuatu were devastated by a cyclone with windspeeds up to 136 mph. The Capitol, Port Vila, on the island of Efate and Tanna, an island to the south suffered the worst reported damage. Over two days this cyclone has turned […]

Geologists are used to seeing each other on field trips, which commonly means without make up, scraggly hair (especially in my case!), unflattering outfits and slightly grubby hands and faces from clawing around in the mud looking at rocks. So once a year the geology society puts on a formal ball for us to attend […]